


A Final Sacrifice

by levianderwindefdidit



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Character Death, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Hurt, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, woke up and chose pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:49:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29562861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levianderwindefdidit/pseuds/levianderwindefdidit
Summary: A brief retelling of The Midnight Sun episode, from an eruri perspective, one in which Levi defeats the Beast Titan but does not leave the fight unharmed.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Erwin Smith, Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	A Final Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this hurts to read as much as it hurt to write :)

“your heart and my heart are very, very old friends”  
Rumi

\------------------------------------------

Far out in the distance, in the midst of a crumbling Shiganshina, a fight takes place. It is a battle between the Cart Titan, that hideous abomination, and those few remaining scouts. It’s a battle they will likely lose, but they were giving it their all, dedicating their hearts in the most passionate way. The thunder spears of Hange’s invention were some of their best weapons innovation to date, and while it was a delicate dance to time the attacks perfectly, they had managed well so far. It would be a while before they would be killed at the very least, and whichever poor soul manages by cruel chance to live can tell their story and give their deaths meaning.

But Levi knows none of this, of course. Holding the unconscious body of the man who hid in the Beast Titan’s nape draped over his shoulders, his eyes desperately darted across what was the most bloody battlefield he had ever seen, which said a lot. 

There had to be a survivor.

There had to be.

Were they really all dead?

The entire regiment?

Bitterness spread across his tongue and his chest went cold. Was Erwin lost as well? Where the hell was he?

The man had seemed so beyond death, even though it was Levi himself who told him to give up his life. Even as those harsh words left his mouth, he half-believed Erwin was impossible to order such a thing to. But right before his eyes, he saw the weight lift from the Commander’s expression, saw the youth that had been stolen from him long ago begin to return, and he knew there was no going back. But even still…

Levi dropped to the ground. At first, it was only a simple confusion that ran through his mind, but he understood when he looked down at himself and took in the extent of the injuries he had sustained in the fight. Pushing himself back up on his knees, he noticed a dark red stain that was pulsing across his uniform shirt, gaining new territory on its pristine whites by the second. He knew what was about to happen.

There was no way he could survive a gash of that size. Especially with everyone so dead, and no chance at medical attention. This was the end, finally. He who they called Humanity’s Strongest found a battle he could not win with his life. 

Glancing at the man he carried, he felt satisfied. His promise to Erwin had been fulfilled, and now here was the reward for it. 

The Titan Shifter was still unconscious, and so Levi still had hope. He watched for a moment as the steam poured from the man’s cut arms and dissipated into the dry air, and resolve set in his bones. 

There was someone out there, someone alive. Levi would find this person, make them into a monster, and feed them a human being, because there was no other way. 

He touched the box containing the titan serum in some odd gesture of motive, and ignored the way his vision blurred and the way his legs shook when he stood up. Using his last reserves of strength, he pulled the Shifter up across his back yet again, and carried that burden into the grassy plains filled with corpses and loose limbs. 

Passing a man’s decapitated head, eyes open and innocent yet blank of any soul, the image of an old friend flashed briefly through his head. Even the hues of their hair were similar, and the thought of joining Isabel and Farlan again felt strangely distant to Levi. 

His breath had become shallow, and the world around him was darkening, if only slightly. Levi almost felt drawn to the earth below him as he walked, like some invisible string was tugging with the purest of intention and the strongest of resolve. 

It was then that Levi found him. Erwin and his horse laid prone on the ground. Some redhead soldier lay dead only footsteps away, a bloody arm reaching out towards the Commander. His breath hitched when he took in the sight, and a new force of energy flowed into him.

Erwin. 

His mind buzzing, he dropped the heavy burden from his back and limped as fast as he could to the blond man’s body. He dropped to his knees and reached out shaking fingers to Erwin’s neck.

His heart jumped when he felt a pulse push back against them.

He’s alive, alive, alive.

His mind swarmed with this one singular thought, and Levi almost felt the urge to laugh. Of course he was alive, of course. Why would he ever think otherwise? Erwin was a monster who could not die, that was his curse, had always been his curse in the same way it had once been Levi’s. 

But Levi knew he had been freed from the bonds of life, even if he could not fully process that feeling as of yet, even if he was still breathing for now. 

Levi closed his eyes and thought back to the moment he told Erwin to die, thought about the look on his face. When he opened them, there was a foreign water on Erwin’s face. It took him a moment to realize that it was tears. His tears. 

When he reached a hand to his face and saw blood mix with his crying as he pulled it back, he felt oddly elated. He couldn’t remember the last time he had shed any tears, allowing any form of emotion to break free from the cage he kept them all in, but it was only fitting for it to be now. 

Pulling the box of titan serum from its security in the inner pocket in his jacket, he took one final look at Erwin. He almost looked asleep, save the blood that surrounded him and the crooked angle that his arm had taken. Levi briefly considered whether his other arm would grow back, and the thought of it was surprisingly humorous. 

His chest suddenly felt warm. When he realized this, he thought maybe he had been clawed across the heart by the Beast. But in looking down and seeing a suspicious lack of bleeding, he recognized the feeling to be one of peace.

Is this what you felt when I told you to give up, Erwin? I think I understand you now, more than I ever have.

Maybe you’ll join me someday wherever it is that I end up. Or maybe we’ll just be dead together. And that could be enough.

Looking at the man who lay before him, Levi almost felt genuine sorrow that he would have to keep living in this cruel world.

“You know, it’s almost unfair that I get to die alone now. I’m sure you would have loved to join me,” he says to Erwin’s bruised, unconscious face. “If there’s anyone who needs some rest, it’s you.”

He means it to be a joke, a final sarcastic quip that only the wind and the dead bodies would hear, but he suddenly felt pure sadness. A sadness so deep it bordered on longing, on desperation. Was this regret?

Unnerved by that feeling and with a new sense of urgency, he opens the box and pulls out the syringe inside. Injecting it into the vial of that ominous substance, he withdrew enough so that the needle was as full as it could be. 

He grabbed Erwin’s limp arm and positioned the needle at the first vein he saw. Before he made the last move, however, he looked up at his Commander’s face. And he knew that he needed to speak with him before he left, even if Erwin would not be able to reply. 

He carefully placed the syringe back in the box, hoping that he wouldn’t die before he got to use it again. He reached out with one hand to touch Erwin’s face, and then hesitantly, the other. He ran his thumbs gently across his cheekbones, felt the stubble on his chin. Touching him without regard felt so right, so correct, so good. Levi wondered why he had restrained himself from doing this earlier, when Erwin could touch him back.

Levi pulled his body up into his lap, heavy as it was, so that he could hold him close. In using so much force, he could feel only the dullest of pain, and was grateful for the adrenaline that he knew was pumping through his blood as his systems prepared to fail him. He pressed Erwin’s face to his shoulder, held him tight at his side despite the open wound there pouring blood across his hand. He sat there in silence for as long as it felt necessary to do so. 

“Erwin,” he said, throat rasping. He could taste the tang of blood, and felt a sincere sense of disappointment knowing his words here were limited, and that their time together would soon be cut short.

“Erwin, I’m sorry,” he began, not even sure of where his mind was going or what he was apologizing for. All of it, maybe. This could be the delirium of death finally reaching his mind, but he believed in his instincts more than anything else.

“I wish I could let you rest,” he spoke simply, meaning it in earnest this time. “I wish I could take your place and allow you to give up your pain. I would never do this to you if there was any other choice, and I trust you to know that”

“When you find me in whatever comes next, I hope you’ll tell me about the basement. That is, unless that loud brat was making up some dumbass stories for his own amusement.” He paused for a moment, seriously considering the likelihood that Eren was just some stupid kid getting everyone killed for nothing.

He dismissed the thought. “I’m sure that isn’t the case though. I just hope it’s worth it, whatever you find in there, and I hope that it changes things somehow”

“But Erwin, you should know it wasn’t your fault. None of it. When soldiers die, it’s because of a choice they make. To follow you. They know what the consequences are, and they do it anyway. I made that choice. I gave you my heart, and I meant it. I haven’t regretted it ever since”

A pause.

“I know you’ll never understand that though,” he says with a small sigh.

He felt a lump in his throat, and stared into Erwin’s sleeping face yet again, unsure of what else he had to say. He knew there was more, didn’t feel complete just yet.

Thinking for a moment, he realized with a new sense of urgency that he wanted just one more thing out of this life.

Carefully reaching out his bloody fingers, he pried Erwin’s eyes open ever so slightly. It was a primal need from deep within him to see them one last time. He needed to see them, needed them to be the last thing he saw, the last thing he thought of before he let go of them forever. 

His breath hitched.

Erwin’s eyes, even unconscious and close to death, were still so blue. Bluer than even the clearest of skies could ever be. Nothing Levi had ever seen could ever hold a flame to the intensity those eyes offered him. If he had the time, he would stare into them forever, he knew it as a simple fact. They were just so bright. So bright, so unclouded, so…

So beautiful. 

His mind filled with a simple, cold clarity.

“I love you,” he spoke into the air.

The words rang true through his mind, and his heart felt like it would burst with the pure emotion that filled him head to toe.

“I love you,” he repeated again, because once was not enough.

He glanced at the Beast Titan’s body, lying maybe a meter away from the two of them. Erwin still lay cradled in his arms, and Levi held him just a little tighter, reluctant to let him go. 

If only I could have held you like this before. When things were easier. Would you have let me?

Would you have held me back?

But there was no point to these ruminations, and Levi knew it.

“I love you.” His voice had fallen to a whisper.

Pulling the syringe back from the box, he stared one last time into the face of the man he had just confessed to. Slowly, he bent down to kiss Erwin on the forehead, leaving drops of blood on his abnormally-pale face.

“I love you,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you know or not,” he added. And it didn’t, because it was true, and that was good enough. 

With a shuddering breath and shaking hands, he pushed the serum into Erwin’s broken body.

“I always have. I’ve always loved you, Erwin.”

He watches as a flash rips through the otherwise still air, and a strong wind pushes against him. A giant form begins to shadow the earth, visible even through the lightning. It’s only then that Levi realizes in his clouded judgement that he should probably turn and run from this scene, lest he be eaten instead. 

He pushes himself up slowly and with great effort, and makes it only three short steps away before collapsing to the ground. The string that had only pulled on him lightly before had made one final tug, a command that was too strong for him to continue resisting. He barely comprehends the fall, it feels like it happens in slow motion. He feels the coolness of the grass touch his skin, and for once does not mind that he would be getting dirt on his face.

\---------------------

When Erwin comes to consciousness, the first thing he notices is the sun. It sits low in the sky, and the world around is colored a happy red. A stark, mocking contrast from the pigment of the blood that he sees on his hands.

A pair of glasses sit innocently on the grass in front of him. The material they are made of is some sort of strange metal, and the lenses are connected in a decorative manner that he had never seen before. Erwin pushes himself to his knees to grab them and bring them to the light in order to examine them, finding them far more fascinating than anything he had ever seen anyone wear. Hange might like them, he thinks idly to himself. At the very least they could wear these glasses on special occasions, maybe. 

But something feels wrong to him. His body feels different than it once had, though he can’t place exactly why. It carries a different energy now, one that is both lighter and heavier at once. 

Suddenly, he can feel the quiet surrounding him. It struck him that he was outside the Walls, sitting plainly in enemy territory. He reached for a sword that wasn’t there. The peace of it all was not natural, this was not a normal expedition. Had something gone wrong?

Was he alone here?

And it was then that he saw the bodies. A sick horror filled his chest as he turned and saw nothing but carnage in every direction. Horses bled out in harmony with the lifeless corpses of his youthful soldiers, the ones he had called to follow him into hell. It all came back to him, most of it, anyways. The important parts, probably. The Titan Shifters, the Beast Titan, the rocks that flew so fast and hit so hard, worse than any bullet could ever be. The words he spoke to his soldiers, the words he shared with Levi, the order Levi had given him, the darkness on Levi’s face.

His breath stopped.

Levi.

Where was Levi?

Stumbling to his feet, he peered back at Shiganshina in the distance behind him. There was smoke rising from inside those ruined Walls, and a strange sense of dread flooded his stomach. Levi must be there, with the others. 

Who won the fight? It must have been over by now. He couldn’t see any Titans anymore. Why the hell couldn’t he remember what happened? 

It was as he turned to head back to the city that Erwin saw him. 

It was Levi. It was Levi who lay face down in the grass, body just as limp as the hundreds that surrounded him. 

Erwin froze in his place.

Levi looked just like everyone else. 

But it couldn’t be. Levi was not everyone else. Levi couldn’t die so simply like this, it wasn’t possible.

Erwin stared down at the short black hair that drifted calmly in the breeze, stared down at the undercut that had seemingly been spared from any blood. Stared down at the pale neck disappearing into a green cloak. Levi had always lacked anything close to a tan, as growing up underneath the ground tends to have that effect. 

But today there was nothing, no pigment, his skin was whiter than paper. 

Erwin dropped to his knees. Reaching out to the man that resembled Levi, he grabbed the cloak. He examined it carefully, noticing its tears and the splotches of dark red. He frowned. Levi would never wear something so unclean.

He pulled his hand up to Levi’s shoulder and shook him, almost expecting him to wake up and open his eyes once again. But Erwin knew what death looked like, and even though he couldn’t accept it, his heart understood the sight that he was seeing. 

“Levi.” 

He used the practiced voice of a Commander, hoping against hope that this order would bring the man back to attention, ready to hear the rest of his plans or ready to discuss strategy as they always had. 

“Levi, what is it that you are doing here? Stand up.” 

When it didn’t work, he felt a panic set into his chest. 

“Levi,” he said once again, an edge of desperation seeping into his voice. He didn’t recognize the emotion, didn’t understand why his words didn’t have the confidence they always had.

Confusion was not something he was used to, and neither was this crippling fear that began to ice over his entire body.

“LEVI,” his voice had pitched into a tight scream now, something he had only meant to be a yell, or just a louder command at the very least. 

He pulled the man up into a sitting position, looking into his blank face. There was a gash across his forehead that had dripped red across most of his skin. The grass had dried alongside the blood, making him look as if he was halfway-buried already. 

Erwin did his best to wipe away whatever mess he could. All he wanted was to see Levi with clarity, he could feel that desire deep in his soul. 

When enough of the muddy mixture was gone, he looked again with intent, and saw a strange upturn in Levi’s lips. 

With a shock, he realized Levi was smiling. 

It put a pain more powerful than any injury Erwin had ever felt into his heart.

Erwin leaned Levi’s body against himself, then turned him so that he could stare into his face once again. 

It was only when he reached forward to cup Levi’s face, slight and angular as it had always been, that he realized he now had two arms yet again. But that was impossible, this could not be real.

And with a cold, cold understanding, Erwin knew at once what had happened, and what he had become. 

He couldn’t control the emotions that ripped out of him then and there, and sobbed freely in a way he was sure he never had before. Nothing but the corpses of his comrades were there to witness it.

He pulled Levi close in a tight embrace, wishing more than anything that Levi would wake up and hold him back. 

“You were supposed to survive,” he choked out, the words almost an accusation, but not quite.

“I was supposed to die. That was the agreement, that was the promise you made me!”

With one hand in Levi’s matted hair and the other across his back, Erwin felt a sincere emptiness. 

“I gave up for you, I did what you said, I held up my end of the deal.”

There was no use in saying anything more, but Erwin needed to say it anyways.

“I can’t live without you.”

The truth of those words made the pit inside him just a little bit deeper.

“Levi, I can’t live without you.”

Levi said nothing back, his head hanging limp over Erwin’s shoulder. There was no warmth in his touch.

“Levi, I need you to listen to me. I can’t live without you.”

But Levi couldn’t hear him, and the world couldn’t be more cruel.

Slowly, Erwin pulled the two of them back down onto the grass. He held Levi close to him, and felt the sharpest pang of regret in his core that he had never done this before, never done it while Levi was alive, while Levi could feel his arms, feel their heat, feel their comfort, feel how much Erwin cared for him.

Levi had given him his heart, Erwin knew. But he wished he never did. This was a sacrifice so sincere, so meaningful, but so painful. 

“I…”   
“I loved you, Levi. I always have.”

Erwin laid with Levi in the blood-stained earth as the sun set. Neither of them moved even as the moon raised itself into the sky, even as the air turned into a sharp, frigid chill. Erwin could barely feel it, anyways. He could only feel the weight of Levi’s body pressing into his own, and hoped that somehow Levi could feel Erwin’s warmth from beyond. He held Levi’s head against his chest, fingertips buried in his dark hair. He moved his other hand so that he could trace the smile that Levi left for him, a final parting gift from the dead to the living. 

“I loved you, and you never knew.” 

The next morning, the Commander put his mask back on and left the Captain lying in the fields. Not even the basement was enough, his dream of knowing the world sat there unfulfilled. Life was just more complicated now, and nothing would ever be enough again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/feedback very appreciated. Still kinda new to this so lmk what I can improve on!


End file.
